NONE OF US with any nous believed the party was really back to normal. "Ehrsul." I whispered to her and made motions, but when, winding her long cha.s.sis precisely she pathed her way to me, it was to tell me she couldn't hack any coms to work out what was happening. with any nous believed the party was really back to normal. "Ehrsul." I whispered to her and made motions, but when, winding her long cha.s.sis precisely she pathed her way to me, it was to tell me she couldn't hack any coms to work out what was happening.

I found a couple of the last Amba.s.sadors in the room, MagDa and EsMe. "What's going on?" I said to them. "Hey. MagDa. Please."

"We have to . . ." one of EsMe said. "It's . . ." "Everything's under control."

"MagDa. What's going on?"

Mag and Da and Es and Me looked as if they were going to say something. EsMe had never liked me, had a common Amba.s.sador opinion of the returned outgoer, immerser, floaker, and so on, but still, they hesitated.

To my great shock Scile appeared beside us. He met my eyes, either without emotion or hiding it. "MagDa," he said. "You have to come and talk to Ra."

They nodded and I lost that moment. As the five of them walked away, I grabbed Scile's arm. I kept my face impa.s.sive, and he looked back at me similarly. It hardly surprised me that he was closer to whatever was happening than I. He'd been working with Staff, he'd been in cahoots with Amba.s.sadors. They'd always been so focused on using Language they weren't used to learning about it, and as things had shifted in Emba.s.sytown, and it had become useful to think about such questions, they had, I understood, been fascinated with his theories. His work had made him useful. He had certainly been to more Staff functions than I had.

"So?" I said. I was only slightly surprised at my brazen self. Floakers did what they had to. "What's going on?"

"Avvy," he said. "I can't tell you."

"Scile, do you know what's happening?"

"No. I don't. I'd a . . . I really don't. This isn't what I expected." Near us two people touched wine gla.s.ses like little bells. The musicians were drunk now and the music was veering. This was the single chance many locals would have to meet the immerser crew, and they were taking advantage. Seeing pairs and little groups leave the party, I remembered that borrowed s.e.x appeal of immer. I'd benefited from it myself on my return: it had been a heady few weeks.

"I have to go," Scile said. "They need me."

Es took one of his arms, Me the other. They surely knew relations were bad between Scile and me, and perhaps even why. I doubt they were sleeping with him. Scile's a.s.signations were brief and occasional. Though all Bremen marriages were legal in Emba.s.sytown, locals tended to invoke exclusive, property-based models. I was was jealous of Scile, of course, but at what he'd become, and what secrets he knew. jealous of Scile, of course, but at what he'd become, and what secrets he knew.

IT WAS HALF an hour to my flat. Ehrsul came with me. In a lot of countries I've been in the populace all have personal vehicles. All but the largest streets of Emba.s.sytown were too narrow, and often too steep, for that. There were altanimals and some biorigged carriages to take certain routes, which switched from wheels or treads to legs where necessary, but most people went on foot. an hour to my flat. Ehrsul came with me. In a lot of countries I've been in the populace all have personal vehicles. All but the largest streets of Emba.s.sytown were too narrow, and often too steep, for that. There were altanimals and some biorigged carriages to take certain routes, which switched from wheels or treads to legs where necessary, but most people went on foot.

Emba.s.sytown was a small and crowded place, our population growth limited by the edge of the aeoli breath. It was surrounded by the Host city, except at the very northern point, where Ariekene plains started. Semilegal urban growth was tolerated, jury-rigged rooms sutured to walls, looming over alleys like eaves, thrown up on roofs, always ready to be abandoned. Most Staff tacitly approved of such enterprising s.p.a.ce-maximisation. Here and there were half-trained biorigged bits and pieces, some backstreet-crossbred with Terretech and holding together through luck, tended aspects of domesticity.

Arced over Emba.s.sytown was the Emba.s.sy itself, edging up to those plains. At something over a hundred metres it was the tallest building we had. A fat pillar, studded with horizontal boughs and landing pads, to and from which, even so late, bioluminescent corvids moved. Like something melted, the Emba.s.sy spread out at its base and became part of the streets that surrounded it. Staff neighbourhoods were half-covered, as much the innards of the Emba.s.sy itself as alleyways. Ehrsul and I descended by panelled lift, through walkways, corridors that became things between corridors and streets, arcades half-open, with unglazed windows, and then into the streets proper, and the breeze.

"G.o.d, it's nice to get outside," I said.

"We're not, not really," Ehrsul said. "We're all always in the aeoli breath." A room of air.

It made me think about her, that she didn't leave Emba.s.sytown, though she could have. She wasn't programmed to be interested in the city, I supposed. I shied away from that. In my rooms I sipped more wine, and Ehrsul companionably made trid visions of a similar gla.s.s, made her trid head drink from it. She patched into my station but could find out nothing about the evening's occurrences on the localnet.

"I'll try again when I get home," she said. "No offence but your machine . . . you'd have more luck banging rocks together."

I'd been to her home several times. It was tiny, and spa.r.s.e, but there were pictures on the walls, a kitchen, furniture for human and other guests (one beautiful, obscene-looking Shur'asi stool). Her flat and its tasteful accoutrements were perhaps for my and others' benefits: her pictures, her coffee table, her imported rug elements of an operating system, designed to make her user-friendly. These ruminations felt disgraceful. I wondered about EzRa.

Formerly, 4

Ha.s.sER BUZZED ME. "How did you get my number?" I said.

"Please," he said. He didn't sound particularly intimidated, though I was deploying my best f.u.c.k-you immerser swagger. "It's not hard to track you down. Come and have a drink."

"Why would I come and have a drink?"

"Please," he said. "There are people you should really meet."

The similes met in an amiably collapsing part of Emba.s.sytown, near our young ruins. I took a long route, walking for most of the morning, past many ignored and homeless automa. I even pa.s.sed the coin wall and as I always did glanced at the door.

There are slums on Charo City, and I've spent more time than I'd like in their environs. Many of the ports at which I've docked are in or by such areas: it's as if slumism is an infection carried by ships. When in the course of Emba.s.sytown parties, members of reformer factions started mouthing, I tended to interrupt them. "Slums?" I'd say. "Believe me, my friend, I've seen slums. You know where I've been? I know from slums. We don't have slums."

In Emba.s.sytown there were no rag-draped children playing with paper boats in stinking water, in potholes; no people selling themselves for food to immersers and people from the out, nor hawking bits of their DNA or flesh to bioccaneers; wattle-and-daub huts didn't shake as ships rose and descended overhead, didn't collapse every few landings. Our social graphs were pretty flat: differentials of money and power were minor. Excepting Staff, and Amba.s.sadors.

The wallscreens and projectors in our unkempt areas were on forgotten loops, their cycles degraded. Some advertised discontinued products, or luxuries from the out of which I knew there had been none left for a long time. Here as elsewhere in Emba.s.sytown the walls were overgrown with ivy and altivy, and specked with a local moss-a.n.a.logue, so the light from those advertis.e.m.e.nts and crude public art was dappled with leaf-shadows.

There were places where, pushed through the foliage, embedded in bricks and plastone, pipes siphoned information from or fed illicit and troublemaking opinions to the screens. I walked in the glimmer of hacked denunciations of Bremen, threats of violence to Wyatt and his small staff. A demagogic trid ghost muttered about freedoms, democracies and taxation. Even Wyatt would hardly have been very concerned about this half-hearted radical's display, though I'm sure he would have excoriated the constabulary for failing to take such graffiti offline.

I was in a shopping street specialising in leather and altleather. I smelt tanning and guts by a shop where ripe purses were being harvested from a biorigged tree. The butchers cut them with skill, making a slit to which they would attach a clasp, scooping out innards and readying the skins for sealing. In the rear was a crop of immature umbrellas, silly luxuries weakly flexing their vespertilian canopies. The altleather goods were simple, mouthless, a.r.s.eless things which couldn't have lived: the viscera that slopped in the shop's gutter were vague and meaningless.

At least a dozen similes were gathered in the wine-cafe called The Cravat, to where I'd been directed. Its trid sign stalked endlessly in front of it, a figure failing to do up its neckpiece. I stepped through it (an unexpected flourish of tridware making it look up as if startled before reverting to its loop) and inside.

"Avice!" Ha.s.ser was delighted. "Introductions . . . Darius, who wore tools instead of jewellery; Shanita, who was kept blind and awake for three nights; Valdik, who swims every week with fishes." He went round the room like that. "This is Avice," he said, "who ate what was given to her."

OF COURSE we were hardly all the similes the Ariekei spoke. Some were animal or inanimate: there was a house in Emba.s.sytown out of which, many years before, the Hosts had taken all the furniture, then put it back, to allow some figure of speech. The split stone, made so they could speak the thought, we were hardly all the similes the Ariekei spoke. Some were animal or inanimate: there was a house in Emba.s.sytown out of which, many years before, the Hosts had taken all the furniture, then put it back, to allow some figure of speech. The split stone, made so they could speak the thought, it's like the stone that was split and put together again it's like the stone that was split and put together again. Most, though, were Terre men and women: there was something in us that facilitated.

Many similes, of course, were uninterested in their status. There were I gathered one or two among Staff. Even Amba.s.sadors. They never came.

"They don't like being Language," Ha.s.ser said. "It makes them feel vulnerable-they like speaking speaking Language, not being it. Plus they'd have to hobn.o.b with commoners." He spoke with the complicated amalgam of respect and resentment I'd heard before and would again, many times. Language, not being it. Plus they'd have to hobn.o.b with commoners." He spoke with the complicated amalgam of respect and resentment I'd heard before and would again, many times.

We talked about Language, and what it meant to be what we were. They talked: mostly I listened. I tried to keep the irritations their blather raised to myself. I'd come, after all. A disproportionate number of the similes seemed, to varying degrees, to be independencers. They said this and that about Bremen's benighted hand and ruthless agents. Having met Wyatt, this in particular made me snort.

"I don't see any of you turning down anything from the miab," I said.

"No," someone answered, "but we should trade trade, instead of handing over b.l.o.o.d.y taxes and aid."

Ha.s.ser gave me sotto voce information about my interlocutors as they spoke, like a vizier in the ears of an Amba.s.sador. "She's just bitter because she doesn't get called very often. Her simile's too recondite." "He's less a simile than an example, honestly. And he knows it." When I went home I was peppery about them all. I told Scile how ridiculous a scene it was. But I went back. I've thought a lot about why I did. Which does not mean I could explain it.

On my second trip, Valdik, who every week swam with fishes, told the story of his similification. He was an ongoing: his status depended not on something that he had done or had done to him, but on something he had to continue to do. It's like the man who swims with fishes every week It's like the man who swims with fishes every week, the Hosts might want to say, to make whatever obscure point it was, and to allow them that, it had to be true that he did. Hence his duty.

"There's a marble bath in Staff quarters," Valdik said. Glanced up at me, back down. "They shipped it years ago, all the way through the immer. They put little altfish in with me, which can take the chlorine. I swim every Overday." I suspected he spent the eleven days between each such trip preparing for the next. I did not know what efforts were made to ensure such activities were ongoing, the tenses of the Hosts' similes accurate. I wondered if that was part of the Amba.s.sadors' slight unease with us: the possibility of a simile strike.

When it was my turn, I told my new companions about the restaurant, and the things I ate, and it was unpleasant enough, what had happened, that I accrued some credibility. Some of them stared at me; one or two, like Valdik, were avoiding looking at me at all. "Welcome home," said someone quietly. I hated that and stopped policing my expressions, made sure they could see that I hated it. And I hated that when he took his own turn, described terrible things done to enLanguage him, Ha.s.ser, who had been opened and closed again, modulated his voice and timed his delivery and turned it, true as it was, into a story.

Latterday, 6

A CITIZEN WHO CITIZEN WHO didn't spend much time at the Emba.s.sy might not have seen that anything was wrong: the checkpoints were manned; Staff and Staff-apprentices were around; signs still appeared in trid and flatscreen glowing information. Disquiet, though, was palpable, since the party, to those who knew. didn't spend much time at the Emba.s.sy might not have seen that anything was wrong: the checkpoints were manned; Staff and Staff-apprentices were around; signs still appeared in trid and flatscreen glowing information. Disquiet, though, was palpable, since the party, to those who knew.

No ship had ever left with such an unfocused valedictory as our last arrival. Of course sufficient pomp had been attempted. Soon enough after the Arrival Ball that some were still cheerfully dishevelled, the immerser crew had been seen off on their boat by a gathering of Amba.s.sadors, Staff and people like me, Emba.s.sytowners holding their breath until, left alone, they could deal with whatever it was that was happening. In fact, they, we, didn't deal with it at all. There were those among the Staff, I picked up later, who had tried to insist that the ship not leave.

I, Avice Benner Cho, immerser, first a lover then an ex of CalVin (some Emba.s.sytowners probably thought it a lie, that, but it was part of me and was also true), advisor to Staff on out-business, had my entry to the state offices blocked by a nervous constable. In the end it didn't take much. A little floaking-I think you've made a mistake, Officer, a moment's But that's precisely why I'm here, they wanted my help But that's precisely why I'm here, they wanted my help-and I was pa.s.sed. I had no illusions about my real stock to insiders. But to have to go through that simply to get into the hallways?

Inside there wasn't even a pretence at calm. I jostled past Staff whispering arguments with each other. I looked for EdGar, or someone I knew would talk to me. "What are you doing doing here?" said Ag or Nes of AgNes, her doppel shaking her head. They were rather here?" said Ag or Nes of AgNes, her doppel shaking her head. They were rather grandes dames grandes dames, and paid no attention to my muttered response. "I'd get going, girl." "You'll only be . . ." ". . . in the way." Others were less dismissive-RanDolph gave me smiles and mimed exhaustion, a high-ranking vizier I'd once got drunk with even winked at me-but AgNes were right, I was an obstruction.

In a top-floor teahouse, overlooking our roofscape and its segue into the outlines of the city, I found Simmon, from Security, and cornered him. After obligatory protestations that he knew nothing, that he couldn't tell me anything, he said, "I've not seen Amba.s.sador EzRa since the party. I don't know where they've gone. According to the original schedule they were due to be part of a meet-and-greet half an hour ago, but they never turned up. Mind you they weren't the only ones. Plans have mostly gone to s.h.i.t. Where in h.e.l.l are the Hosts?"

Good question. Discussions of major issues between Emba.s.sytown and the Hosts-mining rights, our farms, technology barter, Language celebrations-were only occasional, but every day, there were minutiae that had to be agreed. There were always a few Ariekei in the corridors, for one or other negotiation. The Emba.s.sy was toughly floored, to withstand their point-feet.

"They're not here," Simmon said. He ma.s.saged the odd flesh of his biorigged arm. "None of them. We've had generations to compromise with them on what const.i.tutes an appointment, so we know fine b.l.o.o.d.y well that several were supposed to be here this morning, and would normally have been, and they're not. They're not returning any of our buzzes. They're not communicating with us at all."

"We must have offended them pretty badly," I said at last.

"Looks like it," he said.

"How, do you think?"

"Pharotekton b.l.o.o.d.y knows how. Or EzRa knows." Neither of us said anything for a moment. "Do you know someone called Oratee?" he said. "Or Oratees?"

"No. Who's that?" It hadn't sounded like an Amba.s.sador: a strange name with no ghost-stress halfway through it.

"I don't know. I heard CalVin and HenRy talking about them, sounded as if they'd know what's going on. I thought you might know them. You know everyone." It was nice of him, but I didn't have it in me to play that up. "AgNes and a couple of other Amba.s.sadors blame Wyatt for this, you know."

"For what?"

"For whatever. For whatever it is that happened. I heard them. 'This is all down to him and Bremen,' they were saying. 'We always knew they were undermining us, well here we are . . .' " Simmon made his prosthetic hand move open-closed to show a talkative mouth.

"So they know what's going on, then?" He shrugged.

"Don't think so, but. You don't have to understand something to blame someone for it," he said. "They're right, anyway. This has to be a . . . manoeuvre, no question. EzRa . . . some Bremen weapon."

What if AgNes were right? If so, and I played the particular last contact-card I had, it would be, I supposed, a betrayal of Emba.s.sytown. CalVin and Scile came to my mind and I overcame any hesitation. I buzzed Wyatt. As I connected I tried to think strategically, to work out where and how he was professional, where likely to bend, trying to work out what to say that might actually gain me some insight, persuade him to divulge something. The payoff to all this skulduggery was sheer bathos.

"Avice," Wyatt shouted when I got through. "Thank G.o.d you called. I can't get anyone to pick up over there. For f.u.c.k's sake, Avice, what's going on?"

HE WAS MORE CUT OFF even than me. He and his few a.s.sistants had offices in the heart of the Emba.s.sy, of course, but some Staff blamed him, others wanted to keep him out of whatever was happening, and all agreed they should caucus without him. They managed to do so never quite breaching the law that placed him, their Bremen overseer, above them. even than me. He and his few a.s.sistants had offices in the heart of the Emba.s.sy, of course, but some Staff blamed him, others wanted to keep him out of whatever was happening, and all agreed they should caucus without him. They managed to do so never quite breaching the law that placed him, their Bremen overseer, above them.

They had circulated, as they were obliged to, a list of all that day's many meetings. Wyatt had sent officers to all those in main halls, and had gone himself to one t.i.tled "Emergency Organisation" to discover that all these were sideshows, anxious extemporised discussions between mid-level Staff over issues such as stationery acquisition. The real debates, post-mortems on the party, hypotheses about the Hosts' silence, had happened already, during the Any Other Business sessions of meetings of the Public Works Committee.

"It's a f.u.c.king outrage, Avice!" he said. "That's exactly the kind of thing that has to stop, that is exactly exactly the sort of thing we've been sent to put an end to. They have the sort of thing we've been sent to put an end to. They have conspired conspired to keep me out. I'm their b.l.o.o.d.y superior! Not to mention what they're doing to EzRa-these men are their colleagues, and they're ostracising them. It's a disgrace." to keep me out. I'm their b.l.o.o.d.y superior! Not to mention what they're doing to EzRa-these men are their colleagues, and they're ostracising them. It's a disgrace."

"Wyatt, wait. Where are EzRa?"

"Ra's in his room, or he was when I buzzed him. Ez I don't know. Your colleagues-"

"They're not my-"

"Your colleagues are freezing them out. I'm sure they'd arrest them if they could. Ez's not answering, and I can't find him . . ." The notion of an Amba.s.sador having separate rooms, doing different things, still reeled me.

"Do they know what's going on?"

"Don't you think they'd tell me?" he said. "It's not everyone everyone here who tries to cut me out, you realise, just your b.l.o.o.d.y Amba.s.sadors. Whatever it is they're hatching . . ." here who tries to cut me out, you realise, just your b.l.o.o.d.y Amba.s.sadors. Whatever it is they're hatching . . ."

"Wyatt calm down. Whatever's going on, you can see Staff aren't in any more control than you." He must have known the Emba.s.sy had had no contact of any kind from the city, since that night. "The Hosts aren't saying anything. I think . . ." I said carefully, "I think EzRa . . . or we . . . must have accidentally done something that offended them . . . badly . . ."

"Oh, bulls.h.i.t," Wyatt said. I blinked. "This isn't one of those stories, Avice. One moment of cack-handedness, Captain Cook offends the b.l.o.o.d.y locals, one slip of the tongue or misuse of sacred cutlery, and bang, he's on the grill. Do you ever think how self-aggrandising that stuff is? Oh, all those stories pretend to be mea culpa mea culpas about cultural insensitivity, oops we said the wrong thing oops we said the wrong thing, but they're really all about how ridiculous natives overreact." He laughed and shook his head. "Avice, we must have made thousands thousands of f.u.c.kups like that over the years. Think about it. Just like of f.u.c.kups like that over the years. Think about it. Just like our our visitors did when they first met our lot, on Terre. And for the most part we didn't lose our s.h.i.t, did we? The Ariekei-and the Kedis, and Shur'asi, and Cymar and what-have-you, pretty much all the exots I've ever dealt with-are perfectly capable of understanding when an insult's intended, and when it's a misunderstanding. Behind every Ku and Lono story, there's . . . pilfering and cannon-fire. Believe me," he added wryly. "It's my job." He made thieving-fingers motions. It was because he would say things like that that I liked him. visitors did when they first met our lot, on Terre. And for the most part we didn't lose our s.h.i.t, did we? The Ariekei-and the Kedis, and Shur'asi, and Cymar and what-have-you, pretty much all the exots I've ever dealt with-are perfectly capable of understanding when an insult's intended, and when it's a misunderstanding. Behind every Ku and Lono story, there's . . . pilfering and cannon-fire. Believe me," he added wryly. "It's my job." He made thieving-fingers motions. It was because he would say things like that that I liked him.

"There's always argy-bargy, Avice," he said, and leaned toward the screen. "Job like mine. I've not shown bad form, have I?" He said this suddenly almost plaintively. "But this . . . Avice, there are limits. JoaQuin and MayBel and that lot-they need to remember what I represent."

Bremen was a power, so always at war, with other countries on Dagostin, and on other worlds. What if enemies sent battleships in our our direction? Kicked Bremen in the colonies? What, were we going to raise our rifles, our biorigged cannons, aim at the skies? Any comeback for a little genocide like that, which they could offhandedly commit, would have to come from Bremen itself, if it calculated it worth it. Melees in the vacuum of sometimes-s.p.a.ce, or terrible strange firefights in the immer. That threat, and Arieka's isolation in rough immer-and, though it went unspoken, our lack of importance-were the deterrents against attacks at that level. But there were other factors in Bremen's martial calculations. direction? Kicked Bremen in the colonies? What, were we going to raise our rifles, our biorigged cannons, aim at the skies? Any comeback for a little genocide like that, which they could offhandedly commit, would have to come from Bremen itself, if it calculated it worth it. Melees in the vacuum of sometimes-s.p.a.ce, or terrible strange firefights in the immer. That threat, and Arieka's isolation in rough immer-and, though it went unspoken, our lack of importance-were the deterrents against attacks at that level. But there were other factors in Bremen's martial calculations.

The Ariekei were not pacifists. They sometimes conducted obscure internecine murders and feuds, I had been told; and whatever Wyatt said, whatever the reasons, there had been violent confrontations, deaths, between our species, in the early years of contact. Protocols between us were very firm, and for generations, there'd been no trouble in relations. So it felt absurd to imagine the Ariekei, the city, ever turning against Emba.s.sytown. But we were some thousands, and they were many many times that, and they had weapons.

Wyatt was more than a bureaucrat. He represented Bremen, officially our protector; and as such, he must be armed. His staff were suspiciously athletic for office workers. It was well known that there were weapon caches in Emba.s.sytown, to which Wyatt alone had access. The hidden silos were rumoured to contain firepower of a different magnitude from our own paltry guns. There for our benefit, of course, the claim was. Bremen officials arrived with the keys deep-coded in their augmens. It was impolitic and a little frightening of Wyatt to state so blatantly, even to me, an outsider of sorts and a friend of his, of sorts, that his staff were soldiers, with access to arms, and he their CO.

It was true that he was patient. He ignored Emba.s.sytown's minor-to-moderate embezzlement when the miabs came, and every few years when Bremen taxes were collected. He encouraged his officers to mix with Staff and commoners, and even sanctioned the occasional intermarriage. Like all colonial postings, his was a difficult job. With communication with his bosses so occasional, initiative and flexibility were vital. We'd had officious women and men in his post before, and it had made ugly politics. In return for his softly-softly stance Wyatt felt owed. That the Amba.s.sadors were unfair.

I liked Wyatt but he was naive. He was Bremen's man, when the lights went out. I understood that and what it meant, even if he did not.

Formerly, 5

HOSTS WOULD SOMETIMES bob into view, alone or in small groups, zelles at their feet, walking their slowed-down scuttle through our alleyways. Who can say what their errands were? Perhaps they were sightseeing, or taking what, according to odd topographies, were shortcuts, into our quarter and out again. Some came deep into the aeoli breath, right into Emba.s.sytown neighbourhoods, and of these some were looking for the similes. These Ariekei were fans. bob into view, alone or in small groups, zelles at their feet, walking their slowed-down scuttle through our alleyways. Who can say what their errands were? Perhaps they were sightseeing, or taking what, according to odd topographies, were shortcuts, into our quarter and out again. Some came deep into the aeoli breath, right into Emba.s.sytown neighbourhoods, and of these some were looking for the similes. These Ariekei were fans.

Every few days one or two or a little conclave would arrive with dainty chitin steps. They would enter The Cravat, their fanwings twitching, wearing clothes for display-sashes fronded with fins and filigrees that each caught the wind with a particular sound, as distinct as garish colours.

"Our public demands us," someone said the first time I saw such an approach. Despite the faux-weary joke anyone could tell that this audience meant a great deal to the similes. The one time I persuaded Ehrsul to come with me, ostensibly to store up anecdotes so we could later laugh at my new acquaintances, the arrival of some Hosts seemed to dis...o...b..bulate her. She ignored my whispers about the Ariekei, did not speak much except in brief polite non sequiturs. I'd been with her in Hosts' company before, of course, but never in so informal a setting, never according to their unknown whims, not terms requested by Emba.s.sytown panjandrums. She never came back.

The owners and regular clientele of The Cravat would courteously ignore the Hosts, which would murmur to each other. Their eye-corals would crane and the tines separate, looking us over as we looked back. Waiters and customers stepped smoothly around them. The Hosts would talk quietly as they examined us.

"Says it's looking for the one who balanced metal," someone would translate. "That's you, Burnham. Stand up, man! Make yourself known." "They're talking about your clothes, Sasha." "That one says I'm more useful than you are-says he speaks me all the time." "That's not not what it says, you cheeky sod . . ." So on. When the Hosts gathered around me, sometimes I had to suppress a moment of memory of child-me in that restaurant. what it says, you cheeky sod . . ." So on. When the Hosts gathered around me, sometimes I had to suppress a moment of memory of child-me in that restaurant.

I didn't find it hard to recognise repeat visitors, by that configuration of eye-corals, those patterns on the fanwing. With the exhilaration of minor blasphemy we christened them according to these peculiarities: Stumpy, Croissant, Fiver. They, it seemed, recognised each of us as easily.

We learnt the favourite similes of many. One of my own regular articulators was a tall Host with a vivid black-and-red fanwing, just enough like a flamenco dress for us to call it Spanish Dancer.

"It does this brilliant thing," Ha.s.ser said to me. He knew I was hardly fluent. "When it talks about you." I could see him groping for nuances. "'When we talk about talking,' it says, 'most of us are like the girl who ate what was given to her. But we might choose choose what we say with her.' It's virtuoso." He shrugged at my expression and would have left it, but I made him explain. what we say with her.' It's virtuoso." He shrugged at my expression and would have left it, but I made him explain.

In the main my simile was used to describe a kind of making do. Spanish Dancer and its friends, though, by some odd rhetoric, by emphasis on a certain syllable, spoke me rather to imply potential change. That was the kind of panache that could get Hosts ecstatic. I had no idea whether many of them had always been so fascinated by Language, or whether that obsession resulted from their interactions with the Amba.s.sadors, and with us strange Languageless things.